Time Capsule Journal Assignment
You have found a journal in an old box/trunk. It contains an ancestral journal (think family bible) with entries penned by and about members of your family in which you lacked any previous knowledge. This assignment is purely creative. Therefore, you choose the individual, gender, race and social status of your ancestors while applying the historical and societal experiences to their lives. Be mindful of their personal, community and family history, beginning in the early 1600’s (colonial era), in what is now the United States of America and The West. As this is an African and African American literature course, despite your own personal history and genealogy, you will write from the perspectives of Africans, Indigenous peoples, European settler-colonists and African Americans.
You will write four journal entries that pass on knowledge/experience and witnessing. The journal is divided into four sections: the colonial and founding nation period (1600’s-1780’s), post-American Revolution/reconstruction/Victorian era (1790’s-1870’s) , Jim Crow era (pre-civil rights) (1830’s-1950’s) and contemporary era (2017). The previous entries have been penned by three ancestral members of your family. These people have, over the years, moved/migrated and perhaps married into races/cultures different from their own. They have also witnessed and experienced changes in the law and institutional practices which shaped the world(s) in which they (and we) live(d). These events and changes will form the backbone of your entries. The final entry will be penned by you. Write your last entry as though you are writing to your future children, niece, nephew. What do you want them to know?
You must also use at least four outside sources for the entries, two of them must be archival: think historical, cultural and legal documents. Your sources must be approved by me by
May 9.
Questions/thoughts to ponder while crafting the “journal entries”:
● What historical events/happenings can you connect to your journal entries? (This is the
easiest and most effective way to include sources, especially the archival ones). These sources
will be paraphrased and not in MLA format, in order to keep with the epistolary theme.
● Who are you to those who came before you?
● As you look back on what you have been exposed to this semester, why is your entry
important?
● Why is knowledge of one’s ancestors important?
● What do you think a family journal would/should capture throughout the generations?
● Don’t forget about the themes we’ve covered in class.
Feel free to use the texts read thus far as a model for your journal entries:
● Toni Morrison, “Unspeakable Things Unspoken”
● Douglas Turner Ward, “Day of Absence”
● George S. Schuyler, Black No More
● Toni Morrison, A Mercy
● Octavia Butler, Wild Seed
● Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
● Nnedi Okorafor, The Book of Phoenix
Here’s a list of some helpful narratives in which to model your entries:
The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano: or Gustavus Vassa, the African
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Autobiography of Malcolm X
Your journal must have some sort of archival component. Therefore, you must include an archival artifact (image, newspaper clipping, etc).
Here is a sample list of archives close by or online:
● Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library/
○ https://www.nypl.org/locations/schomburg
● Fordham University
○ http://news.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/bronx-black-history-archives-go-publ ic/
● The Museum of the American Indian
○ http://nmai.si.edu/visit/newyork/
● National Archives/Black History
○ https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/black-history.html
● NPR Archives
○ http://www.wnyc.org/series/black-history-month-nypr-archives
● Unpublished Black History/NYT
○ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/national/unpublished-black-history
● New England Historical Society
○ http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/
● National Archives/Native Americans
○ https://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/native-americans.html
Part 2:
Submit your Time Capsule Journal entries. Your submission must be:
● Typed
● Any easy to read font
● 12 point font
● Traditional letter/Journal format. Include:
● Person’s Name
● Date
● State/Part of the country
● Each journal entry must be at least two full pages, approximately 500 words
● Complete the journal with a Works Cited page (the only thing that needs to be in MLA
format) and a copy of your archival sources (at least two). There should be a citation page after each entry. Use Luis Machuca’s as an example.
***Note: I’ve chosen not to include examples because I would like you to be as creative as possible. Also, practically speaking, if I include events in the examples, you would be barred from using them in your entries.
